California San Fernando Mission

Van Nuys week 5

Today is Tuesday (not Monday) and I’m writing an email. The thought makes me slightly uncomfortable so I’m going to get through this and get the heck out of here. This ain’t no preparation day, this is go-to-work day! #MemorialDayProbs (Shout out to Elder Sam Allen) #TheLibraryWasClosed #America But we had a pretty sweet week. Another double exchange week! I’ve said this once and I’ll say it again: exchanges are the best. They’re even better when they’re back-to-back exchanges! They’re even better than that when one of them is a trio-exchange!!

Tuesday to Wednesday: I went up to Sun Valley to work with a brand new Elder named Elder Santana. He just got out ~5 weeks ago and is already a beast. We hit the pavement right away after we swapped, and 3 conversations in we found a new investigator! Looking back he might’ve been a tad borracho but eh, still counts haha. But there were miracles abound that day. Had a lesson with some struggling health-wise members on fasting and got the Hermano to cry. He felt the Spirit! Success! It was a great day.

Wednesday to Thursday: I went over to North Hollywood/Burbank to work with Elder Blakeley and Elder Sanchez. They’re currently in a trio so I swapped with another Elder to finally get a taste of the trio-life in the field. Holy cow it’s so fun haha. We had so much fun tpgether it was hard for me to find opportunities to train haha. Elder Sanchez is also a new missionary, but he and his companion are already great missionaries there wasn’t much I could do. But we found as well! Two new investigators at that (once again, one of them was probably borracho…darn the bad luck). Having three representatives of Jesus Christ all together at the same time didn’t exactly make it fair for Satan but this work is important so we took advantage. They’re a fun group of Elders so we had some good times.

Other news, we had interviews with President Hall on Friday. Interviews are the best also. As zone leaders we had to stay at the building the whole day to keep tabs on the schedule and rotate missionaries in and out. While they were waiting for their turn we got some cool role-play teaching practices going. It was pretty much a mini-zone conference for every missionary, while Elder Kimball and I got the benefit of each one. As you can imagine, definitely a revelatory experience. President is a genius by the way. With his mission coming to a close soon, Elder Kimball asked him some questions regarding schooling and staying active in the church and such, of which he shared some insanely cool insights with me. Benefits of having an “old” companion.

Not much to update in terms of investigators. Elder Kimball and his companion-of-the-day during exchanges found some cool people to teach as well, but no one has really progressed since then. No one came to church…again But asi es. We’re hitting hard on daily contact and invitations to church this week to fix that. We’re on the way to some major breakthroughs around here! A few more baby steps here and there will get us to hit it.

There seems to be a lot of sweet stuff going on around the country lately. A few days ago a million Jurassic Park movie posters appeared out of no where and I was like “what the???”. Plus I think I also saw somewhere the NBA Finals are starting soon? Sometimes I think, “Dang, I’m missing some sweet stuff out there” but then I realize: wait a sec, aren’t I a part of the most important work in the entire world? Is it more important to know the latest basketball score or bring a soul unto Christ through faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end? Definitely the second one. Temptation is out there for sure (especially in basketball scores for me haha) but I know as I put my whole mind on the work I find myself having more success and seeing much more miracles. And I know you can all experience the same as well, sometimes we just need a slight change in focus or priorities.

Finally time to go to work! I forgot the camera this week, so you’re all looking for an overload next week… Sorry. We went to the Hollywood sign (kind of) as a zone last Monday and I took the best selfie ever there too so get pumped. Love you all!